Zheng Mahler’s work ‘What is it like to be a virtual bat?’ is the second in a series of multispecies, sensory ethnographies around the ecosystems of Lantau Island, Hong Kong, and is an attempt to acknowledge the limitations of human sensory capacities and how technology can be used to ‘mediate’ these constraints and embody more-than-human experiences. The starting point is philosopher Thomas Nagel’s seminal 1973 essay ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ which introduced the problem of qualia or the ‘hard-problems of consciousness’ to philosophy. It asks whether the mind is reducible to an emergent faculty of the brain and human physiology or if an aspect of the ‘raw feels’ of consciousness, the subjective quality of experience, is irreducible to the material structures of the brain. It is a question about the nature of reality, and whether we construct it through our consciousness or we are ourselves the mere illusory products of a material universe. Zheng Mahler’s approach to this question is empirical and draws from the latest research in the field of VR, which has recently focused on the possibility of animal embodiment and the sensations of presence this induce, as strategies for creating greater empathy between humans and animals. Working with virtual reality, ultrasonic microphones, thermal cameras and photogrammetry, it attempts to simulate the sensorimotor contingencies of what it is like to be a bat in order to ask the question of whether, in simulating the physical properties of being a bat, we can get close to the subjective qualitative experience of being one. At the same time, the project attempts to understand the experience of non-human ontologies. (Courtesy of the artist)
